L-amino acids, in particular L-threonine, are used in human medicine and in the pharmaceutical industry, in the foodstuffs industry, and most especially in animal nutrition. It is known to produce L-amino acids by fermentation of strains of Enterobacteriaceae, in particular Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Serratia marcescens. On account of their great importance efforts are constantly being made to improve processes for producing the latter. Process improvements may relate to fermentation technology measures, such as for example stirring and provision of oxygen, or the composition of the nutrient media, such as for example the sugar concentration during the fermentation, or the working-up to the product form, for example by ion exchange chromatography, or the intrinsic performance properties of the microorganism itself.
Methods comprising mutagenesis, selection and mutant choice are employed in order to improve the performance properties of these microorganisms. In this way strains are obtained that are resistant to antimetabolites, such as for example the threonine analogue a-amino-β-hydroxyvaleric acid (AHV) or are auxotrophic for regulatorily important metabolites, and that produce L-amino acids such as for example L-threonine.
Methods of recombinant DNA technology have also been used for some years in order to improve strains of the family Enterobacteriaceae producing L-amino acids, by amplifying individual amino acid biosynthesis genes and investigating their effect on production.